Pledge helps makes worksite safety personal to construction crews

On a construction worksite, where individual worker’s
decisions can impact the safety of the entire team, promoting a culture of safety
is an ongoing job. Workers are trained, supplied protective gear, observed by
supervisors, and surrounded by reminder signage.

As an extra measure, Dallas ISD encourages crews on each
worksite to sign a “Workers’ Safety Pledge” that asks them to commit themselves
to working safely to protect the onsite construction team, district students
and staff. Elizabeth Ponce, who heads the Picasso Construction team performing asbestos
abatement for one of the district’s renovation projects, said the safety pledge
underscores some of the industry’s conventional safety protocols.

“The most important thing is that they make sure that they
have their respirators on properly because when they go into containment, they
can be exposed to asbestos, that they take care of themselves, so they’re not
breathing contaminants,” she said. “And when they are coming out of the area that
they a take a proper shower to remove all and any asbestos that’s potentially
there to make sure that when they go home, they don’t take any asbestos with
them to their homes and to their families.”

Ponce said signing the safety pledge makes
worker safety a personal matter. “Based on what I see and how they signed it
and what they said when they signed it, they dedicated it to their families, to
their kids, because everybody wants to go home to their families,” she said. “All
of them signed their kids’ names and so I believe that’s what it means to them,
that ‘I’m going to take care of myself so I can go home to my family.’”